Sentinel-5 A Spot

Sentinel-5

 

Monitoring trace gas concentrations from a polar orbit

Sentinel-5 A Spot
Sentinel-5 A Spot

Copernicus Sentinel-5 will provide operational monitoring of trace gas concentrations for atmospheric chemistry and climate applications.

Last Updated

22 September 2023

Published on

19 May 2020

The objectives of the Sentinel-5 polar-orbiting atmospheric monitoring missions are:

  • Measurements of ozone profile and total column
  • Measurement of columns of sulphur dioxide (SO2), nitrogen dioxide (NO2), water vapour, methane (CH4), carbon dioxide (CO2), carbon monoxide (CO)
  • Measurement of bromine monoxide (BrO),formaldehyde (HCHO), glyoxal (OCHCHO)
  • Measurement of volcanic plumes

Carried on the polar-orbiting Metop-SG-A satellite, the Sentinel-5 mission comprises an Ultraviolet Visible Near-infrared Shortwave (UVNS) spectrometer and data from the Infrared Atmospheric Sounding Interferometer (IASI-NG), the Visible Infrared Imager (METImage) and the Multi-viewing Multi-channel Multi-polarisation Imager (3MI).

Compared to GOME-2, the major breakthrough of Sentinel-5 will be a drastically increased spatial sampling at a sampling distance of 7km, and the extension of measurements into the near and short-wave infrared, providing information about aerosols, as well as methane and carbon monoxide in the planetary boundary layer.


UVNS characteristics

Hyper-spectral soundings with a spectral resolution from 0.065–1nm in the wavelength range from 0.27–2.4385µm, at a spatial sampling of 7km for channels above 0.3µm.

  • Band ID: UV-1
    Spectral Range (nanometres): 270-300
    Spectral Resolution Δλ (nanometres): 1.0
    Spectral Oversampling Factor: 3
    SNR(1, 2) @ Lref: 100 @ 270nm
  • Band ID: UV-2
    Spectral Range (nanometres): 300-370
    Spectral Resolution Δλ (nanometres): 0.5
    Spectral Oversampling Factor: 3
    SNR(1, 2) @ Lref: T: 1000 @ 320nm, O: 1000 @ 310nm
  • Band ID: VIS
    Spectral Range (nanometres): 370–500
    Spectral Resolution Δλ (nanometres): 0.5
    Spectral Oversampling Factor: 3
    SNR(4) @ Lref: 1500(3) @ 420nm, for λ < 430nm
    1800 (T) / 2500 (O) @ 460nm for 430nm < λ < 460nm(4)
    1500 @ 460nm for λ > 460nm
  • Band ID: NIR-1
    Spectral Range (nanometres): 685–710, 710–750
    Spectral Resolution Δλ (nanometres): 0.4(T)/0.2(O), 0.4(T)/0.2(O)
    Spectral Oversampling Factor: 3, 3
    SNR(5) @ Lref: 500 @ 710nm, 500 @ 750nm
  • Band ID: NIR-2
    Spectral Range (nanometres): 750-775
    Spectral Resolution Δλ (nanometres): 0.4(T)/0.06(O)
    Spectral Oversampling Factor: 3
    SNR(5) @ Lref: 500 @ 755nm
  • Band ID: SWIR-1
    Spectral Range (nanometres): 1590-1675
    Spectral Resolution Δλ (nanometres): 0.25
    Spectral Oversampling Factor: 3
    SNR(5) @ Lref: 250(5) @ λmax-SWIR1
  • Band ID: SWIR-3
    Spectral Range (nanometres): 2305-2385
    Spectral Resolution Δλ (nanometres): 0.25
    Spectral Oversampling Factor: 3
    SNR(5,6) @ Lref: T: 120(5) @ λmax-SWIR3, O: 100(5,6) @ λmax-SWIR3

T — Threshold requirement, O — Objective requirement, λ — spectral channel centre of any spectral channel within the band, Lref — spectral radiance for estimating the signal-to-noise-ratio

The instrument is a pushbroom imaging spectrometer, directly imaging the entrance slit onto the Earth's surface.